Forgot to take a photo of when it came out. I made a flattened turkey and it cooked in an hour and a half and was very yummy! You can see the pan that I cooked it in, next to these parts....

A rare photo! I don't know what possessed Shadow to sit "next" to Lizzie since he's so scared of her!
A sadddd movie!

After breakfast shot!

Praline topped French Toast and fruit salad......

I put this together on Christmas Eve and popped it into the oven on Christmas morning while I was taking a shower!

Breakfast shot!

This kid loves hot sauce, got him the institutional size!

Mine and Pete's.............

We gave mom a rosary from the Vatican, pearls and sterling silver.

Rocky's had this stocking since he was born! When he was little we took photos of him
"in" the stocking!

Cookies all done (too many for us)! Chocolate sugar and regular sugar cookies.

Got this photo idea from Audrey..........

Whitney and the adorable Bailey Rae!
Whitney and Julie Rettmann

Anita's tree and the ornaments for the "ornament exchange".

Julie, Melanie, Anita, and Pam

It was a "pot luck" and there were lots of goodies!

Just wanted to share photos from our Christmas Bunco at Anita's house, December 14th. I didn't win the big prize but I broke even, that's always good! I made the famous "sweet and sour" meatballs, always a great potluck recipe and so simple.

Here's a laugh.........since I didn't want to go home and venture back into town I bought the ingredients and my slow cooker to work. The conference room/kitchen outlets were taken and the cord to my slow cooker was so short it wouldn't reach from the conference room tables. Sooooooooo, I put the slow cooker on my desk where there was a plug very close by and cooked my meatballs for Anita's bunco that started at 6pm. Talk about multi-tasking! Hope you all had a great chuckle over that one, I should have taken a photo!

Hope you all had a great holiday!!!!!! Mom and I are getting out today. Yes, I am venturing out into the crowds, although I don't think it will be that bad. Need to go to Hallmark and I'm hoping to find some of those great LED lights that have been advertised, hope there are some left. They were a bit pricey so I'm hoping to find some at 50% since we need to replace some of our lights, not only that, they are energy efficient (gotta love that), of course that's why they are pricey.

For all you crafters I have been following a couple of blogs lately (since it's so slow at work). They are on my "Favs" in the sidebar, check them out.

Have a great day!!!

Want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas! Enjoy your time with your loved ones!

When I left work at 5pm on Tuesday evening, this was the view as I was crossing the street. The sky was so lit up from the snow on the hills it was spectacular, I couldn't resist snapping a couple of photos, had to keep jumping out of the way of cars that could have hit me so it took a couple of shots before I got these two. If I had a tripod with me they would have been perfect!

Not going into work today since Peter said "don't come in, I'm closing up at noon"..........bless that guy! Now I'll be able to finish up for Christmas and probably have a little down-time ;)

Finally finished my garland and actually hung it up! Yeh! I have another project I want to get done and will have it done after Christmas and all ready for next year. I'll post a photo when I'm done...........

How incredible is this..............Anita's dh sent me a little gift on Sunday (the Scrapbooker's Christmas party), it's a little antique spoon with my name (nickname) on it! I was so thrilled and excited to get it. Sam scours the end of the earth to find things to sell on EBAY , he also facilitates many Estate Sales: it's been his full-time business since he retired.
Thank you Sam, I love it!

Happy, happy birthday to my sweet nephew and godson, Brandon.

Since I knew we would have a lot of down time, especially travelling, I took 2 books with me, "The Lovely Bones" and the above. I left a note inside that said "I decided to leave this behind because I decided to take home some wine", not true but I thought it was pretty cute. I bought both books at "The Bookwagon" because I knew I would finish them and I didn't want to bring them back (needed room for that purse I bought).

I enjoyed both books, although I had put off reading "Bones" for some time because I didn't like the subject. I have to say I really enjoyed it and now I see the movie based on the book is coming out (I think this month).

No, we didn't give our son Scnapps!

It all starts with this! Hot chocolate, coffee and some scnapps!

We went up the usual path but Pete had to keep driving up higher than anyone else and guess what..............we got stuck in the snow. You see 4x4's can't take you everywhere! We finally managed to get it out and turn it around and then I told Pete let's go get the tree and we'll go from there. Getting the tree was the fastest part of our journey!

Found a couple of trees and the one we ended up with was the best. Got the tree loaded and then proceeded to try and get down the road!!!! Not so easy. After about an hour, 2 young men in ATV's were coming up the road and asked if they could help us - uh, yeah! They were with a big party, we saw them on the way up. They went and got their big truck with a BIG chain and in 2 minutes we were out and going down the road.

When we were finally on the road I said to Pete "we're never going that high again!"

I really needed to be home to get some decorating done. It was Sunday and Monday was a work day! By the time we got home and got the tree up it was time to make dinner! So not much decorating was going on Sunday, December 6th.

Donna Downey has a great give-a-way today!!!! Go to donnadowney.typepad.com

Just getting off the "Ponte de Vecchio". There was a place on the left that actually served an "American" breakfast for E11 (roughly $17US)
Gelato around the corner from the apartment, small place but very good!
This was Sunday and it was "auto free" day! So many people in the streets!!!!
We did this a lot............check out menus.
Down the street from the apartment
The Uffizi museum
The view from the Uffizi (Ponte de Vecchio)
One of Italy's WONDERFUL doors...........
a picture from the "ponte"
Okay so it looks gross but it's just a piece of architecture while you're walking around.......

Firenze was pretty great, big but pretty great. We did wake up to church bells here but no traffic noise when you're (who knows) many stories up and those concrete buildings, pretty sturdy. You had to wonder how old the building was because the stairs (also concrete) showed that many people have walked up those stairs.

This was Sunday and I like I mentioned "auto free" day. Florence is pushing "riding your bike" everywhere so on the other days you see many people riding bikes. It's a big crowded city and like a big city trying to go "green".

We did 2 museums in one day: "The Academia" (where David is) and "The Uffizi". I pre-purchased tickets on-line before the trip so we could walk right in. I have to say we walked in circles most of that day and guess what the Uffizi was about 4 blocks from the apartment - ha!

Academia was a nice museum of course "David" being their main focal and what a main focal. Like I've said before Michelangelo, a genius.

The Uffizi itself is a work of art, a very old museum and so absolutely beautiful, I couldn't take photos in the rooms, one room we didn't even look at the statues because the room was so breathtaking.
We found one of the outdoor markets while we were walking to the Uffizi and I bought one scarf and told Pete we need to go back at some point, which we did the morning we were leaving (it was close to the station and you know what............5 minutes from the apartment!)